War with Iran will do US more damage

In an op-ed article co-authored with Steven Simon, a former State Department official who also worked for the National Security Council, Clarke wrote reports that the Bush administration is contemplating bombing nuclear sites in Iran raised concerns that "would simply begin a multi-move, escalatory process."

Iran's likely response would be to "use its terrorist network to strike American targets around the world, including inside the United States," Clarke and Simon warned.

"Iran has forces as its command far superior to anything Al Qaeda was ever able to field," they said, citing Iran's links with the militant group Hezbollah.

Iran could also make things much worse in Iraq, they wrote, adding "there is every reason to believe that Iran has such a retaliatory shock wave planned and ready."

President George W. Bush might then sanction more bombing, Clarke and Simon said, hoping Iranians would overthrow the Tehran government. But "more likely, the American war against Iran would guarantee the regime decades more of control."

The authors concluded by warning that "the parallels to the run-up to the war with Iraq are all too striking: remember that in May 2002 President Bush declared that there was 'No war plan on my desk' despite having actually spent months working on detailed plans for the Iraq invasion."

Congress "must not permit the administration to launch another war whose outcome cannot be known, or worse, known all too well," they said.

Earlier the Sunday Times newspaper said Iran has formed battalions of suicide bombers to hit American and British targets if its nuclear installations are attacked.

According to Iranian officials, 40,000 trained suicide bombers were ready to strike, the British weekly broadsheet said.

Iran is in a stand-off with the West over its nuclear programme, which the Islamic republic insists is for entirely peaceful purposes.

The Special Unit of Martyr Seekers in the Revolutionary Guards was first spotted in March when members marched in a military parade.